People often have a need or desire to share information regarding conditions sensed at user-selected or “personal locations” such as weather and other data with others at remote locations. Such sensed conditions at personal locations are referred to herein as “personal sensor data” and the sensors themselves may be referred to as “personal sensors.” The Internet offers a particularly convenient means for sharing such personal sensor data and social networking services offer a particularly desirable vehicle for sharing such data.
Many social networking services are available for facilitating social relationships between people via the Internet. The popularity of social networking services derives, at least in part, from people's desires to interact over the Internet and to share information regarding their activities, interests, backgrounds and other personal characteristics. The popularity of social networking derives not only from the desire of individuals to disclose such personal information to others that access the social networking systems but also from others' desire to learn and engage in dialogue regarding such personal information.
While sharing such information regarding an individual's activities, interests, etc. is already a focus of social networking services, no one has previously taught or suggested sharing personal sensor data via social networking services. For example, social networking service users may wish to use such networks to let others know weather conditions obtained by weather sensors positioned where the users are located. Or they may wish to position personal sensors to provide personal sensor data regarding soil moisture or temperature, the presence of allergens, sound levels, pollen levels, etc. to be shared over social networking systems.